1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to techniques for reducing the amount of communication through monitoring of an image forming apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-259392, a transmission source transmits data in accordance with a data output format (pattern), and a transmission destination performs processing based on the data format.
A system is known in which count data of an image forming apparatus is monitored by a monitoring apparatus via a network. In such a system, a technique of data transmission with expandability using a SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) schema is employed, since, for example, a pattern that can be acquired by a monitoring apparatus depends on each image forming apparatus in the system.
However, items to be monitored in the maintenance of an image forming apparatus have increased over the years, resulting in an increase in the amount of data flow across a network. In addition, the use of a SOAP schema increases redundant tags in data to be transmitted. This also causes an increase in the amount of data flow across the network.